Monday, 25 June 2012

I’ve got a few
things to cover in this blog post, so bear with me because there is a gift at
the end for reading all the way down.

Amazon reviews - Makers, breakers or irrelevant?

I was asked to guest
post on this topic over on Multi-Story.co.uk. I know that many indie writers
struggle to get reviews from regular review sites and bloggers, and so rely on
family and friends to boost their visibility on Amazon, but you might want to
rethink this strategy after reading my article: http://www.multi-story.co.uk/guestspot.html

Reviews from total strangers

Ultimately, what we
really want and need are comment from readers. Those lovely people who have
bought our books and take the time to give feedback on them. One way of
achieving this is for your book to be picked as a book club read. Bad Moon
Rising featured on the Crime Scene Reader book club. Here is a link if you're interested in finding out how blunt and honest readers can be: Reader Reviews

Name a Rock God Competition

This competition is
now closed. I’ve had some wonderful (and weird) suggestions, which I’ll be
poring over to make a shortlist. Watch this space to find out who won.

And finally, here's the gift: a free collection of short stories to
while away an hour or two

Wish You Were (Not) Here (Pentalpha Publishing Edinburgh) is a collection of seven
short stories. On Saturday 30th June and Sunday 1st July the book will be free
on all Amazon sites. Please help yourselves to a copy.

Monday, 18 June 2012

In Waging War to Shake the Cold the author, Chic McSherry, has achieved something
I didn’t think was possible – he made me empathise with someone who was
basically unlikeable at the beginning of the novel. When I started reading, I
wanted Kats, an ex-army veteran turned gangster, to be apprehended and made to
pay for his actions, but by the end I wanted him to succeed in his endeavours -
causing such a change of heart is no mean feat on the author’s part.

We follow Kats as he unwittingly causes the death of an
innocent woman. From her he picks up some information on which much of the
storyline hangs, although Kats himself is unaware of this at the time. For me,
this is the only part of the plot that comes across as less than credible. It
feels a bit too much like a plot device that this person should not only be in
the wrong place at the wrong time, but that she just happens to have the evidence
with her for Kats to pick up.

Apart from the above quibble, this is a well told and
compelling story. I found it hard to put down once I got into it – and that was
even while I was unsympathetic to Kats!

Kats retires from active duty in Iraq to find that the
country is offering less than nothing to its returning heroes. Unable to find
work and becoming increasingly frustrated with the attitude of those he left
behind, Kats is drawn into a life of crime. The villains in this story are psychotic
and violent, but they act always in character, so the violence is both credible
and chilling. Kats himself is not above using techniques learned while in the
army to get any necessary information, but again, he acts in character, using
just enough to get the job done and not simply for the sake of inflicting pain
on another.

Throughout I felt as if I were in the shady and frightening
world inhabited by the gangsters controlling Glasgow’s underworld – not a
comfortable feeling. And this is not a comfortable book, but it is a gripping
one. I defy anyone to stop reading halfway.

Thursday, 14 June 2012

Behind Closed Doors
introduces us to a new detective – one that I hope is going to feature again
and again in future books. Beatrice Stubbs came to life for me in a way few
fictional characters do. She irritated me at times, but not because she wasn’t
well written, quite the opposite in fact. She annoyed me in exactly the same
way a close friend would. I wanted to yell at her when she did something I
considered dumb, hug her when she felt down and cheer her on when she got
things right. In other words, J J Marsh has created a living, breathing person
with whom readers can identify.

The plot is well crafted and original. DI Stubbs has been
seconded to Zurich to uncover the truth behind a series of supposed suicides,
which are, in fact, carefully crafted murders – each one designed to fit the ‘crime’
for which the killer has deemed the victims guilty.

We know fairly early on who is orchestrating everything, but
not how or why, and it is this need to know which keeps the reader turning
pages.

Behind Closed Doors
straddles the boundary between literary fiction and crime writing, but it sits
comfortably in both camps. It is, quite simply, a very well constructed crime
novel written by an author in total control of her material.

I can’t wait for the next Beatrice Stubbs novel. My only
concern is that the author has set the bar so high this is going to be a hard
act to follow.